Qualcomm CEO Expected to Save $1.4B in Arm Royalties with Nuvia Purchase

Qualcomm CEO Christiano Amon told the company board that purchasing Nuvia would save up to $1.4 billion annually in Arm royalties. This revelation came during the Arm vs. Qualcomm trial, where Arm alleges that Qualcomm's Snapdragon X chips infringed on its patents. The Nuvia Acquisition Strategy Amon justified the $1.4 billion acquisition of Nuvia in 2021, explaining that it was designed to reduce Qualcomm's reliance on Arm designs and to compete more effectively with Apple's Bionic chips. He also aimed to challenge Intel's dominance in the laptop market. Finding no alternative to Arm, Qualcomm saw Nuvia as the answer when former Apple engineers founded it in 2019. Initially, Amon tried to get Nuvia to design cores for Qualcomm. However, he opted to simply buy the company outright when that failed. The board was hesitant, as Nuvia had no products at the time and was focused on server chips. To win them over, Amon argued the purchase could save Qualcomm $1.4 billion yearl…